Ice Slurry Ingestion Does Not Enhance Self-paced Intermittent Exercise in the Heat

This study aimed to determine if ice slurry ingestion improved self-paced intermittent exercise in the heat. After a familiarisation session, 12 moderately trained males (30.4 ± 3.4 year, 1.8 ± 0.1 cm, 73.5 ± 14.3 kg, inline imageO2max 58.5 ± 8.1 mL/kg/min) completed two separate 31 min self-paced intermittent protocols on a non-motorised treadmill in 30.9 ± 0.9 °C, 41.1 ± 4.0% RH. Thirty minutes prior to exercise, participants consumed either 7.5 g/kg ice slurry (0.1 ± 0.1 °C) (ICE) or 7.5 g/kg water (23.4 ± 0.9 °C) (CONTROL). Despite reductions in Tc (ΔTc: −0.51 ± 0.3 °C, P < 0.05) and thermal sensation prior to exercise, ICE did not enhance self-paced intermittent exercise compared to CONTROL. The average speed during the walk (CONTROL: 5.90 ± 1.0 km, ICE: 5.90 ± 1.0 km), jog (CONTROL: 8.89 ± 1.7 km, ICE: 9.11 ± 1.5 km), run (CONTROL: 12.15 ± 1.7 km, ICE: 12.54 ± 1.5 km) and sprint (CONTROL: 17.32 ± 1.3 km, ICE: 17.18 ± 1.4 km) was similar between conditions (P > 0.05). Mean Tsk, Tb, blood lactate, heart rate and RPE were similar between conditions (P > 0.05). The findings suggest that lowering Tc prior to self-paced intermittent exercise does not translate into an improved performance.

Theatrical Latency: Walking Katrina Palmer’s The Loss Adjusters

In this article I introduce the term ‘theatrical latency’ as a pleasurable effect experienced when listening to sound in relation to visual perception. Latency refers to both the phenomena of audio delay (in feedback from analogue to digital conversion and the momentary lapses experienced when playing live with recorded music) and a theatrical sensation that comes from the reanimation of visual environments through aural framing. In this configuration, the notion of latency takes on a double meaning as both a recorded phenomenon and the retrieval of something dormant within physical objects, sites or materials. These ideas will be introduced through my experience of walking Katrina Palmer’s site-specific audio work The Loss Adjusters (2015) on the island of Portland (UK). The audio tracks create an extended meditation on Portland, interweaving specific locations and histories with fictional characters and ghosts of the island.

Encountering the Spectre of Painting

When thinking what paintings are, I am continually brought back to my memory of a short sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. In the scene, Kim Novak’s Madeleine is seated on a bench in an art gallery. She is apparently transfixed by a painting, Portrait of Carlotta. Alongside James Stewart, we watch her looking intently. Madeleine is pretending to be a ghost. At this stage she does not expect us to believe she is a ghost, but simply to immerse ourselves in the conceit, to delight in the shudder. Madeleine’s back is turned away from us, and as the camera draws near to show that the knot pattern in her hair mirrors the image in the portrait, I imagine Madeleine suppressing a smile. She resolutely shows us her back, though, so her feint is not betrayed. Madeleine’s stillness in this scene makes her appear as an object, a thing in the world, a rock or a pile of logs perhaps. We are not looking at that thing, however, but rather a residual image of something creaturely, a spectre. This after-image is held to the ground both by the gravity suggested by its manifestation and by the fine lie - the camouflage - of pretending to be a ghost. Encountering a painting is like meeting Madeleine. It sits in front of its own picture, gazing at it. Despite being motionless and having its back to us, there is a lurching sensation the painting brings about by pretending to be the ghost of its picture, and, at the same time, never really anticipating your credulity.